


As Always

by DisraeliGears



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: First Kiss, Getting Together, Ill Advised Subterfuge, M/M, Mutual Pining, Nomad Steve Rogers, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Pride Parade, Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:28:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27352744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisraeliGears/pseuds/DisraeliGears
Summary: When they went to sleep last night in the tidy, cheap hotel, Steve had been out like a light almost immediately, the tidy sheets barely disturbed when he climbed in.Now, though, Steve is sprawled at a wild angle across his double bed, on his front, blankets twisted enough that one whole meaty leg and most of his bare back is uncovered, one pillow jammed under his arm. His face, bless him, is lightly smushed on its side, almost at the edge of the mattress, facing Bucky. His hair, longer than Bucky’s ever seen it, is a riot of flips and folds and is all in his face, some even stuck to that ridiculous beard of his.  His indulgently long eyelashes lay lightly against his pink tinged cheeks, and his bright red mouth is open slightly as he breathes.A quick stateside visit can't do any harm, can it?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 13
Kudos: 94





	As Always

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TamerOfPickles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TamerOfPickles/gifts).



> This ended up being four times longer than it was supposed to be but hey, who cares. This was my contribution to the FandomCares auction, and it was a joy to write. Please enjoy :)

As always, Bucky is awake with the sun.

There’s no conscious thought that goes into this action, it just simply occurs, going from a semi-restful sleep to ready to go in the span of time it takes his eyelids to go from closed to open.

He isn’t sure when this habit originated, actually- while certainly it could be explained by decades of aggressive operant conditioning by vindictive Russian and German handlers, he has a sneaking suspicion this came from even earlier than that. Basic training, he thinks, in the spring of 1942…

Ah, yes. The memory seeps back like cool molasses through a fine sieve: an angry drill sergeant, ruddy faced, barrel chested, nose like a smashed strawberry. Walking through the barracks with length of rusty rebar, hitting it against the metal bunk supports as he strolled through at five in the morning, _CLANG, CLANG, CLANG, CLANG,_ all the way along the line. Bucky’d rolled over and jammed his head under the pillow once, only to have it ripped away and that angry, terrifying face right over his, spit flying as the sergeant screamed “PFC BARNES, YOU LAZY SONNOFABITCH, YOU THINK JUST CAUSE YOU GOT A FACE LIKE A PRETTY GIRL I’M FIXING TO LET YOU HAVE A NICE BEAUTY SLEEP-IN? YOU AREN’T ON YOUR FEET IN THE NEXT FOUR SECONDS, AND I’LL FILL YOU SO FULL OF BUCKSHOT, YOU’LL WHISTLE WHEN YOU WALK.”

That kind of psychological terrorism lasted, it would seem.

Bucky can’t help the short chuckle of laughter at the memory, rubbing his palms into his eyes to erase the grogginess. He sighs and stretches, each toe, each ankle, one arm and then the other, the glossy vibranium plates whisper smooth and never delayed. He looks up at the popcorn ceiling, blows a tuft of hair out of his eyes and lets his head roll to the side, looking across the gap between his bed and Steve’s.

When they went to sleep last night in the tidy, cheap hotel, Steve had been out like a light almost immediately, the tidy sheets barely disturbed when he climbed in.

Now, though, Steve is sprawled at a wild angle across his double bed, on his front, blankets twisted enough that one whole meaty leg and most of his bare back is uncovered, one pillow jammed under his arm. His face, bless him, is lightly smushed on its side, almost at the edge of the mattress, facing Bucky. His hair, longer than Bucky’s ever seen it, is a riot of flips and folds and is all in his face, some even stuck to that ridiculous beard of his. His indulgently long eyelashes lay lightly against his pink tinged cheeks, and his bright red mouth is open slightly as he breathes.

Bucky can’t help but grin. He fumbles around on his bedside table, grabbing for his phone, which unlocks automatically for him before he has even focused on it. Wakandan technology, after all.

He finds the camera app and snaps a picture, sending it off to the first person on his contacts. It almost instantaneously says _Read_ beneath the message, and the response comes equally as quick.

_That’s exactly what I always imagined America looked like while it slept._

Bucky smirks and types back. Shuri’s immediate responses are old hat now, so he’s ready and waiting.

_Should I draw something unpatriotic on his face?_

Again, its immediately read and replied to, and the message pops up.

_I was thinking the opposite; you should draw a giant eagle standing on an apple pie and drinking a Coke on his back._

Bucky types back, _Should it have a 6-shooter too? Maybe a cowboy hat?_

Her reply, _Hey, you said it, not me._

Bucky snorts and put his phone down. Kids these days.

He sits up and leans against the headboard, looking out at the glorious bright day. Beyond the balcony is more city and unremarkable grey buildings, but the sky is a rich and limitless blue and a flock of gulls paddling through the air in the distance look like specks of white sea foam riding lazy ocean waves. Bucky inhales again, centers himself. This is enough. Yes, this is enough.

There’s a contented groaning noise, and Bucky looks over to see Steve starting to wake up, turning his head away from the light of the window, sighing and scratching at his head lazily. Bucky isn’t surprised he’s tired- who knows what time zone he’s on. This whole “meeting-up in San Diego” feels rushed and clandestine somehow, thrown together at the last minute.

Shuri had insisted last week that she didn’t need him hanging around her all the time she was in Oakland. Bucky had replied he was her bodyguard, and that was exactly what he was supposed to be doing, wasn’t it? Shuri then said that his constant looming was in fact irritating, detrimental to her productivity, and he should go loom over someone else for a few days, and wouldn’t he like to see Steve, he’s only just in Mexico, they could meet half way and spend some time together, wouldn’t that be fun? And Bucky had left the situation feeling bemused and like he’d been planned around, which was almost always how Shuri made him feel when she was on a roll.

So here he was. Or rather, here they were. Stateside, both of them fugitives from the law, in a cheap hotel with incredibly _not_ cheap fake IDs and about a million words left unsaid. 

The last time they’d seen each other had been two and a half months ago, at the great palace in Birnin Zana. Bucky, shaky but more alive than he’d been in 70 years, had watched in alarm as Steve had strode into the great throne room, sporting a growing beard, long hair and a ragged stealth suit, flanked by a blonde Black Widow and tired looking Falcon. It was the first time the trio had returned to Wakanda since leaving Bucky in cryostasis, and the interceding 6 months had hit Bucky like a hammer. How could he have missed so much?

Steve hadn’t even glanced at Bucky, so hyper focused was he on T’Challa as he greeted the king, shaking hands warmly and with sincere joy. Steve had greeted the immediate circle around him like old friends, thanking them for their hospitality. Bucky, off to the side and in a slight shadow, had considered slipping out the nearest door. This was Working Steve- functional, tactical, high performing, reliable. This wasn’t the time for reunions, or for big hugs and a grand orchestral musical number. It wasn’t Bucky time; it was politics time.

But then Steve had caught his eye and grinned that lopsided, trademark toothy grin, and Bucky’s whole spine and brain went runny, just like always. He was so far gone on this kid, Christ almighty. He was absolutely hopeless, and had not a single regret about it.

Unfortunately, Sam had seen him lurking nearby and burst out laughing, interrupting their moment of eye contact by coming over and clapping Bucky on his flesh shoulder.

“Dude! Look at this guy! What, did you and Steve covertly decide you wanted to look like you were in The Beegees? Is this because you guys missed the seventies? If ya’ll start into, like, bell bottoms and disco fever, I am _bouncing_ the fuck outta the Avengers, man.”

Bucky understood about thirty percent of what Sam said, but he got the general gist. Shuri, who was standing with Bucky, snickered at his expense like she always did.

The Black Widow, svelte, beautiful and quietly menacing as always, gave Bucky a very wry smirk and a one-armed hug, gentle yet heartfelt.

“Well, you look better than the last time I saw you.” She says, in that curiously deep and gravelly voice of hers.

Bucky had dipped his head and tried not to blush.

“Thanks. Uh, you t-“

“Oh, come on now, don’t insult us both by saying ‘you too’. I haven’t slept regular hours in three weeks.” She grinned a twisted grin, though, so she didn’t really seem so hard done by.

“Then you’ll be glad to know that we have guest accommodations already set up for all of you.” Shuri said, ever the tactician, and was able to corral away Sam and Black Widow as Steve approached, apparently having said all he needed to T’Challa.

Blessedly out of earshot of everyone else, Steve strode over and stopped, about ten feet away.

They stared at each other, and slowly, grins split across both their faces until they were beaming like loons.

“What’s this shmutz growing on your face, Rogers? You allergic to mirrors or something?”

“I could ask you the same question; that some kind of moss you got there, or just mud you forgot to wash off?”

Bucky’s heart was so full of pathetic adoration, it physically ached in his chest.

“You’re a punk.” He said.

“You’re a jerk.” Steve parried immediately, and then they both laughed as one.

They met in the middle, wrapping the other in their arms and holding fast. Steve was Bucky’s port in a storm, his true north, his safe haven, his white knight and champion. And being squeezed in his giant anaconda arms was an indescribable feeling of returning home after a long time away.

They pulled away, loosening their arms but not letting go just yet, and Bucky tousled Steve’s long hair, making it fall into his eyes.

“And you need a haircut, too. Ain’t they got a single good barber in this century?”

Steve laughed again, and his eyes were so blue and full of joy it was an almost transportive experience to see them gleam with this much life.

“Kettle, pot. Pot, kettle.” Steve said, tugging very gently at the half-pony on the back of Bucky’s head.

“Ah, but I make this look _good_.” Bucky batted his hand away with no conviction whatsoever.

“Hey, I’m not _arguing,_ I’m just saying; we know about glass houses and stones, Buck.”

Bucky was so incandescent with joy, he was probably floating off the ground a few inches. All he could think was _I would follow you to the edges of the Earth, and when we got there, if you jumped into the abyss, I’d be right behind you._

Steve had just beamed at him, and hugged him again, gently yet resolute.

“God, it’s good to see you, Buck. You’ve got no idea.”

Bucky had every idea, but stayed silent.

Forty minutes later, after a quick tour of the palace, T’Challa had diverted Steve and his tiny, merry yet tired band into a room with a black sand table that came alive with miniature models, and proceeded to recruit them in helping the Black Panther in dealing with an emergency hostage situation off the coast of Somalia.

They left less than half an hour later, Steve giving Bucky a tired, world weary smile and a wave as he climbed into the specialized jet, leaving again after barely arriving at all.

That was then, and this is now.

Bucky levers himself up out of bed, stretching his back and getting a satisfying _pop_ from somewhere above his pelvis. He rakes his hair into a ragged ponytail and secures it haphazardly with the elastic on his wrist, and wanders over to the balcony door, opening it and letting the ocean air blow in, salty and thick. He loves it- it’s a sensory memory of growing up in New York, working at the docks, breathing in the Atlantic.

He’s only in his briefs as he walks out onto the little balcony, but he’s not overly fussed. He knows people are by and large wildly inobservant and oblivious, especially if you’re as quiet as he is. Bucky leans on the railing, looking down over the little quiet shady Eden of the parking lot, at the scrubby trees, at the drift of plastic bags twisting like jellyfish in the breeze.

There’s a lady with a coffee, walking to her car, talking on the phone. A family with kids, meandering through the parked cars with their luggage, and one kid is giggling and trying to hide from the other. It brings Bucky a simple, easy and fully formed joy to witness these acts of everyday life. He’s missed so much in his own life, so now it’s a privilege to simply observe and absorb.

His metal fingers click on the handrail as he shifts his weight, and his feet make a sandy shuffle on the concrete floor. It’s nice to make noise sometimes; to not be a stealth weapon. To be just as real as everyone else.

He hears movement behind him in the hotel room, the sound of Steve yawning and the bathroom door being closed. Steve was always a noisy one, never bothering to be subtle or even obtuse at any point in his life. He’s as direct and straightforward as people come.

A few more minutes of silent people watching come to an end when the sliding door opens behind Bucky and he glances over his shoulder at Steve, who’s in just his jeans and nothing else. His looks like he ran a wet hand through his hair, and that’s about it. His cheek has a big line from a pillow crease embedded in it, and his beard is slightly flat on one side.

“Good sleep?” Bucky says, unable to stop himself from teasing.

“I was out like a _light_. I don’t even think I _dreamed_ ; I just died and came back to life like 9 hours later.” Steve yawns again and leans on the railing beside him. His arm next to Bucky’s is paler, but then he always had that exceedingly pale classical Irish coloring and none of Bucky’s black-Irish darkness and ability to tan in the sun.

“You did kinda look like someone conked you out with a cast iron skillet to the head.”

“Yeah, and that ‘someone’ was probably you.”

“Can neither confirm nor deny.” Bucky says, and they’re both snickering.

Steve straightens up and stretches one arm across his massive chest, pulling it taught with the other arm, and then switching. He’s still as bulky as Bucky remembers him, but there’s not a spare inch of flesh anywhere on him and his muscles stand out under his golden skin like a topographical map of pristine muscular anatomy.

Bucky doesn’t let his eyes linger too long. He’s distracted by Steve’s body… he knows this, and it’s unfair. To himself, and to Steve. To himself, to allow fantasies and wild hopes to grow and blossom, and to Steve, to be lusted after when he is worth so much more to Bucky than just an object of… attraction. This creature inside him, which is hungry for things it cannot have, must remain chained and caged. Bucky’s known this since 1935, and it’s just as true now. Their friendship, kinship, brotherhood, _that_ is what Bucky clawed his way back to sanity for, and what Steve fought Iron Man for. It’s heat-forged, hard won and bloody comradery between them, not roses or daisies or long walks on the beach. Perhaps in the early days of his fantasies in his later teens and twenties, when the shine had yet to come off the world, he had imagined a grandiose paradise consisting of he and Steve. But that was before a century of cruel reality had crisped these images to ash and caused an eventual settling on what he had as more than good enough.

“I’m gonna take a quick shower, then I say we go find us some coffee and breakfast. I could eat just about goddamn anything right now, I tell ya.” Steve gives Bucky a friendly resounding _smack_ on the shoulder and goes to retreat back into the room. Bucky, who knows how many calories a day his body can burn, hums in agreement. Super soldier, super appetite.

“I, uh,” Bucky says, and Steve pauses, looking back at him, “I remembered something this morning.”

“Oh yeah?” Steve beams as if this is the best thing he’s heard in years and leans on the doorjamb.

“Went I went off to Basic, there was this drill sergeant who would wake us up by going through the barracks with a piece of rebar and banging it on the bunks as he went by. And it was so _early_ , God, I hated him more than anything else. I tried to ignore him once, and put the pillow over my head. And he let me _have_ it. Just verbally _unloaded_ on me with both barrels.”

Steve snickers, clearing enjoying this flashback. His huge smile is so gorgeous it makes Bucky smile back just as big.

“I mean, you deserved that one. It’s Basic Training, Buck. That’s how it works.” Steve says.

“Trust me, I didn’t try it twice. He had me do a hundred and fifty push ups in the pouring fucking rain.”

Steve barks out a laugh and runs a hand through his ragged hair, pushing it to the side only for it to fall right back into his eyes.

“Lord am I ever glad I skipped out on most of Basic. But I had to traipse around in tights and short shorts and make a public spectacle of myself so… who knows which is worse.”

“Oh, I know. I’d swap you any day, Rogers; in fact, I could’ve made that whole routine as snappy as a big dancehall number in a day flat, dames and all. Fred Astaire ain’t got nothing on me.”

Steve is laughing into his hands by the time Bucky finishes, shaking his head.

“Yeah, yeah, you were the dancer, not me. I remember. You can tell the Princess to make us a time machine and we can go back and switch spots. No one will be the wiser.”

Bucky snorts and looks back out across the parking lot.

_No_ , he wants to say, _because I wouldn’t wish any of my life on my worst enemy, let alone you._ But instead, because this easy rapport between them is as precious to him as gold, he says “Damn straight. I’ll let her know ASAP; we can probably get a working prototype by next week.”

Steve keeps laughing as he disappears into his shower and Bucky stays on the balcony, watching the gulls, and lets the weeds of memories grow around his brain.

Breakfast is a drawn-out affair because they go to three places to avoid suspicion. After all, two big dudes ordering an illogical amount of food and hoovering it down like a troupe of starving hyenas tends to draw attention. 

Steve’s in deep sepia aviators that work with his shaggy hair and beard to make him look like a 1970’s jerkoff in a Hunter S. Thompson sort of way. Bucky just crams on a ball cap backwards and activates the skin facsimile projection on his arm. He knows well how to carry himself in a crowd to completely shift perception of him to that of the Average Joe, but Steve sure doesn’t, and so Bucky does most of the talking, adopting a new regional American accent each time.

At the third place, a Caribbean eatery, Steve smirks as Bucky orders them each a gigantic chicken and chickpea roti in a bright and sunny Boston accent.

“How’re you so good at that? When we were kids you tried to do a hokey cowboy accent and your Ma clipped you round the ear and told you to grow up.” Steve looks at him over his glasses and sips his 7-UP.

“Not sure, honestly. Training, probably. It’s just in here.” Bucky taps his temple, “No explanations why.”

Steve’s amused look fades, and Bucky regrets his words immediately. He doesn’t want to draw attention to the looming void of unsaid information that hovers in the air over and around them like heavy grey smog.

“That, uh… that happen a lot? You know things but don’t know how you know them?” Steve tests the water, dipping in a proverbial toe.

Bucky swallows and looks down at the tabletop, which has a motif of parrots painted on it under a glass top.

“Yeah, I guess. Shuri… uh, the Princess, Shuri, she says it’s cause a few of the connections between long and short term memory got kinda scrambled. So things didn’t always, you know… _store_ in my head like they should. Hell, maybe they taught me how to do a pommel horse routine and recite Dostoyevsky at some point, who _knows_ what they roasted outta my brain.”

Steve blurts a sort of choked, hysterical pained laugh and plants his forehead into his hands, avoiding crunching his glasses into his face. “Jesus, Buck.”

“Couldn’t burn you out, though.” Bucky says quietly, and he realizes as he says it that he might have said a bit too much, but eh, fuck it. It’s not like it isn’t true.

Steve looks back up at him, and has this strange sort of poleaxed and fond look that makes Bucky laugh immediately.

“I swear it’s okay, Steve. I’ve come to terms with a lot and I can safely say that I feel better now than… hell, maybe than I ever have. I’ll never be all the way fixed, which is fine, because neither will anyone else on this planet.”

Steve gives a little smile and nods a little, half to himself. He looks like a part of him that’s been holding its breath has finally gasped a sigh of relief. He runs one of his great big mitts through his hair to get it out of his face and crosses his arms and leans his elbows on the table. He gives Bucky a genuine half-grin, something that hasn’t changed since 1925, and makes Bucky grin back with all his teeth just like it did then.

“I’m glad you’re happy. I thought about you a lot and I…well. It’s nice to know I can stop worrying about you so much.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow at him. “Thought about me a lot, eh?”

Steve rolls his eyes and a pink flush appears on his cheeks and nose.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up.”

“Oh, I am. What did you think about, eh, when you ‘thought about me a lot’? Maybe my long silky hair, blowing in the wind, or my all-round striking movie-star good looks? Or was it how my ass looks in tactical gear when I’m in the combat firing position?”

Steve gives him a mock dirty look, fighting to keep a smile off his face but failing completely as his cheeks get pinker. He throws up his hands in exasperation.

“Har har _har_. Nice to see you’re as much of a garbage comedian as you were before. Well, it sure wasn’t your humility, I’ll tell you that much.”

Bucky snickers, proud outwardly of his ability to get a rise out of Steve after all these years, but inwardly also tickled by the prospect of Steve thinking of him all those months they’d been apart.

Their food eventually arrives and they descend on it like that haven’t already eaten 2 very large meals before this, fingers greasy and smiles contented.

They walk aimlessly around the city, enjoying the simple aspect of being together after decades apart, and months apart after that. There’s a lot of unanswered questions that hang suspended in the air between them like Christmas ornaments, but those can wait. For now, they’re content as they are, stuck in an easy limbo.

But there’s also something going on in the city, and both of them are becoming increasingly aware of it. As they walk along the sidewalk, the direction of travel of most of the pedestrians becomes more uniform, and the outfits are…well. Bucky isn’t _that_ well versed in modern clothing and style, but he’s pretty sure quite a few of these are considered at least a bit outlandish.

A man wearing leather underwear, chaps, a body harness and a rainbow feather boa is approaching them, and smirks at their owlish faces as they part to let him go between them as he passes.

“You know,” Steve says, as they walk in mildly stunned silence for a while, “the future is way more colourful than any of the books said it would be.”

Bucky can’t help but choke on a giggle. “No kidding.”

They’re quiet for a while longer, then Steve speaks again.

“I like the idea that someone can just live their life and you know… not be worried about what other people think. I mean, sure they can _think_ what they want, but there’s law protecting you from anyone who might want to _act_ on their less charitable impulses. If you’re a bigot, you get called one.”

Bucky side-eyes Steve, and Steve catches him.

“No! No, I mean, obviously intolerance still exists! I’m not _that_ naïve, Buck, c’mon. I just mean, you know…”

“That guy could wear that in public without being lynched?” Bucky suggests, giving him a head tilt.

“I guess.” Steve is quiet again, but his brows are furrowed. They keep walking, and yet more colourfully dressed people walk by, all with rainbow flags, and all walking the same direction.

“I just wish…” Steve sighs and runs a hand through his sandy hair, which falls exactly back in the same position it was before, “I wish the world had come along faster, earlier. So no one… no one has to _put up_ with…” he trails off again, looking for the right word.

“No, I get it. I agree. There’s a lot of people out there who shoulda had a better life than they did, but couldn’t, all cuz someone somewhere’s got a mind as broad as their little finger.”

Steve nods and smiles, and his face is a picture of sunshine. He looks like he’s finally relaxed a bit, and doesn’t look so much like he had when Bucky’d been with him before, in Germany and Siberia. Then, he’d been holding himself with absolute rigidity, jaw sharp and brows in a permanent furrow of fortitude. He finally looks… human. Pliable.

And it’s because he’s too busy looking at Steve, and Steve too busy smiling at Bucky, that they walk right into it.

It’s a parade.

A parade of men, women, and many in between or neither, some walking, some on floats, some carrying massive signs that say _PRIDE SAN DIEGO_ on them. There’s rainbow flags and patterns everywhere, the streets lined with thousands of people hooting and hollering, and someone is playing extremely loud club music. As they stand with their mouths literally agape, a man wearing a glitter leotard throws a handful of something into the crowd and one bounces off Steve’s head and Bucky’s shoulder.

Steve stoops and picks up the little package, blinking down at it.

“Condoms?” he says, voice a little higher than normal.

Bucky can’t stop the snicker from escaping his mouth even if he wanted to.

“Oh, don’t look so shocked. Of all the weird shit you’ve seen, you can’t tell me that rubbers raining from the sky is the one thing that gets you off guard.”

Steve tries to give Bucky a withering look, but he’s got a blush across his cheeks, so his words are about as menacing as a disgruntled puppy.

“No, _ha ha_ , _Bucky_. I just… it’s all a bit, you know. _Forward_. It takes some getting used to.” He’s still blushing.

“Ah, come on. I like forward. Let’s get closer.” Bucky grabs his elbow and tugs, and they make their way along the line of people, weaving their way around more flag wavers and loudly dressed couples, many holding hands. Many of the same gender, Bucky notes, and he finds himself smiling a small satisfied smile. Oh, the difference a hundred years make in a society.

They’re in the fancier area of the city, with big new skyscrapers and huge light up signs. The crowd is _dense¸_ and loud, and Steve and Bucky aren’t even close to the biggest or most muscular guys there, so they hardly stick out. They walk past a giant of a man wearing nothing but a mustache and a stuffed pink flamingo on his… well, needless to say, Bucky bursts out laughing when he sees Steve’s already wide eyes get even wider.

“I like your flamingo.” Bucky says loudly as they pass, and does an extremely hammed up wink. The man blows him a kiss.

“ _Bucky_.” Steve hisses, but is also having a hard time not laughing, “You’re incorrigible.”

“Incorrect. If I were _truly_ incorrigible, I’d be up on that float, dancing in my gotch.” He jerks his thumb at the nearest float, where a bunch of people are doing exactly that.

“I mean, that’s one way to stay incognito.” Steve is grinning with all his teeth now, and Bucky can’t stop grinning back. It’s a reflex.

They are pushed and shoved with the foot traffic until Bucky is able to grab a hold of the guardrail along the parade route and drags Steve up behind him so they have a front row seat to the action. As they get there, there’s a group of older people, all waving flags and holding signs that say “I love my gay son”, “I love my trans son” and “I love my lesbian daughter”.

Bucky beams and waves back, and sees Steve looking shell shocked.

“It’s pretty nice, isn’t it?” Bucky says, loud enough so Steve can hear.

Steve nods as he looks at these proud parents, wonder and a flabbergasted joy on his face.

“I mean, Sam told me that there were events like this all over the world now, but I never thought…Wow. I mean, _look_ at them all, Buck.”

Bucky chucks him on the shoulder, smirking.

“Makes you think maybe this ol America gal has something worth fighting for after all, eh?”

Steve laughs a sort of maniacal, hysterical laugh and groans, but then sobers quickly as he watches the crowd pass by, and then he gives Bucky a penetrating look.

“You know, you’re not as dumb as you look.” he says, hip checking Bucky gently.

“Oh, no, I am. I just know you well enough to guess what’s going on in that thick old skull of yours, Rogers.”

They watch as more floats come, most of these are corporate sponsored and considerably more PC than the previous few. Eventually, Steve says, “It’s not that I don’t want to fight for it. It’s just… she doesn’t seem to want me so much, right at the moment.”

“She will. One day, she will.” Bucky tells him, “You’re her hero, buddy, whether she likes it or not.”

As a Wells Fargo float goes by, covered in extremely ordinary people waving flags, Bucky takes a chance and hooks his arm through Steve’s before replacing his hands on the barrier rail. Steve stiffens for a moment against him, then chuckles as he relaxes again.

“The spirit moved you?” Steve says, elbowing him.

Bucky knows he can’t say what he wants, which is “ _the spirit moved me decades ago, all in your direction”,_ but he knows he can’t, and instead is distracted when he sees the next float and an eyebrow climbs up his forehead.

“Well. Whaddya know.”

“Hmm?” Steve follows his gaze, and then blinks.

The Stark Industries float is massive, ostentatiously tall and made of artful twists of metal and rainbow glass. It’s covered in more people waving flags and signs. Most of them are wearing plain t-shirts with an Iron Man helmet on it, only in rainbow colours rather than the usual red and gold.

Bucky starts to snicker as it comes closer, and he realizes that Steve is laughing too. It’s ridiculous, but they’re both giggling despite themselves. The whole situation feels like a literal farce, and it’s infecting them at the cellular level.

“I mean, it shouldn’t be funny right?” Steve says, wiping away a mirthful tear from under his tinted glasses.

“No! But it is!” Bucky replies, gasping for breath. They can’t help falling into each other, almost howling amongst the unaffected crowd.

“Here. Take my picture; send it to the princess.” Steve says, positioning Bucky and himself so Bucky can get both Steve and the float in frame.

“Brilliant idea.” Bucky says, whipping out his phone and lining them up, “Gimme a thumbs up and the cheesiest smile you can muster.”

Steve does just that, grinning with all his white teeth just as the Stark Industries logo hoves into view. Bucky snaps a couple and is about to press the reverse camera button so take a photo of them both, when he hears the noise and goes rigid.

A high-pitched whine, which he heard up close and personal less than a year previous.

He can see the moment Steve hears it too, because he goes rigid, his smile falls off his face like snow off a roof. He whips around, looking up into the bright blue sky.

“Of course.” Bucky says tiredly, right as a gleaming red and gold figure comes whirling through the sky, does a series of loops to thunderous and climbing applause, and lands half kneeling with a solid metallic _THONK_ right in front of the Stark float.

Iron Man straightens, arms held out like a circus ringmaster. The crowd goes wild, cheering and clapping and chanting. In deference to the occasion, Tony has a rainbow flag for a cape tucked into the shoulder panels of his suit, and as his helmet clonks back away from his head, a huge smile on his face. He pivots on the spot, adoring fans clamoring towards the street. He blows a kiss to the crowd, over and over, and does a flamboyant bow.

“We gotta get outta here, Buck.” Steve hisses, head ducked down and away from the street. Bucky nods, already to find an exit strategy, but is jostled hard into Steve by his neighbor, and the next person again, as the crowd surges forward to get a better look at Iron Man. Bucky and Steve are effectively pinned against the barrier as the teeming mass of humanity behind them jostles for position.

“I could push them.” Bucky says, trying to keep the rising panic out of his voice. He _cannot_ be caught again. He _will_ not. But if he has to choose between him getting away, or Steve… well, he knows who he’ll choose.

The people keep pushing, and are starting to flap markers, parade programs and scraps of paper, shouting “Tony! _Tony!”_

Bucky is almost being bent over backwards over the barrier, half shoved into Steve while keeping his back to the _clonk, clonk_ of Iron Man’s metal feet on concrete. He grits his teeth.

“What’s our play here, Rogers?” he hisses, barely heard above the din.

“Don’t hurt anyone, just keep facing away. We can’t get through without making a scene and drawing attention to us.”

“Steve.” Bucky says warningly, getting shoved again, the mechanical whine of Iron Man’s movements loud in his ears. He glances over his shoulder and his heart drops even further inside his chest.

“He’s coming over here, _he’s coming over here._ ”

“What??” Steve hisses, panic evident on his face but not daring to look around.

Bucky doesn’t reply, because he hears Tony’s voice, about fourteen feet away, talking to someone as he signs autographs and takes selfies.

“ _Steve._ ” He snarls, grabbing a handful of Steve’s shirt, getting ready to bodily throw him through the crowd. If he gives him whatever head start he can, then he will. Unfortunately, Steve seems to have the same idea, because his hand is enclosed tightly around Bucky’s wrist and below his elbow. Bucky sees red and gold gleaming in the afternoon sun, just flickering in his peripheral vision, closer again, and he knows they’ve been caught out. It’s over. They’re busted. They’re going to that floating supermax prison, and they’ll be separated for the rest of their unnaturally long lives. He’ll never see Steve again, never tell him that he’s the glowing epicentre of his fucking universe. Never tell him… well, everything. All the things he should have said since they were teenagers.

Steve goes even more stiff right against him as they hear Tony speak to a young man and his boyfriend- “Hi there, gentlemen.”- only three people away, and he looks down at Bucky, smushed together as they are. And then he gets a strange look on his face.

“Bucky.”

Bucky just stares at him, ready for whatever move he has to make.

“Kiss me.” Steve says, and puts both hands on Bucky’s shoulders.

Alright, perhaps not ready for _whatever_ move.

“I- what?” he says, every function in his brain suddenly muted and screaming simultaneously.

“Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable.” Steve replies in a bizarre rote manner, as if dictating.

Bucky blusters, unable to form a coherent sentence, hands still fisted in the material of Steve’s shirt, ready to hurl him bodily over the heads of the crowd whether Steve lets him or not.

And then Steve is pulling off his glasses, stooping a bit, and he’s kissing him.

He’s kissing him gently, without the urgency the situation demands. His lips are soft and very warm, his beard is catching on Bucky’s chin, and Bucky feels like this must be what it’s like to be born. To suddenly explode from a world of dark into a world of light, gasping and new and so terrifically alive.

Steve’s breath is on his face, his nose pressed into his cheek, and as he opens his mouth, his tongue is against his lip. Bucky can’t stop the little gasp that unfurls out of his throat, or his hands from tugging Steve closer by his shirt, feeling his big warm body crowd closer. Steve’s huge hands are cradling his face, his chin, his jaw, his throat. Bucky lets his mouth open, lets his face be held as his mouth is explored by Steve’s tongue. They break apart for only a second, and Bucky takes two desperate breaths before Steve’s tilted his head the other way and descends again.

He vaguely registers Tony Stark _clank_ past them, but the fleeting care is gone as soon as it ever appeared.

It isn’t like he hasn’t imagined kissing Steve, hasn’t imagined exactly how it would feel to be in this scenario. He wants so badly in this moment, every molecule in his every cell is vibrating and aching with it. He wants this and wants Steve, more than he wants freedom, wants agency, wants air. Wants this to be as real as it feels, and he wants the rising dread to dissipate. Because this is false, and it hurts so badly it’s like he’s developed a massive festering wound. It feels like the cruelest of jokes, to be kissed like this.

And when they part, only by a few inches, Steve’s eyes slide sideways immediately to track where Tony’s got to. He seems largely unaffected, licking his swollen, red lips distractedly, and yeah, that hurts pretty good.

“I think we’re good.” Steve says, covertly looking over his shoulder at where Tony is posing with a group of teenagers for a photo, moving with the tide of the parade.

Bucky doesn’t feel like he’s good. He feels like he’s been broken in half and laid bare like a flayed piece of meat.

“Quick, while there’s a space, there’s an alley there.” Steve says, cramming his glasses back on and pushing Bucky back away from himself and the street, and then they’re shoving through the throng of people, moving against the flow, ducking and weaving. Bucky’s heart is hammering, terror rising as he slides between two girls, around a big planter and into the alley. He puts a hand on the wall, leaning and trying to centre himself.

“Jesus.” He hears Steve say right behind him, “Count on Tony to market himself at an event that doesn’t have anything to do with him. He told me once that self-promotion was the great American pastime; guess he wasn’t kidding.”

Bucky doesn’t reply. He’s too afraid that if he looks at Steve or speaks, everything he’s mortified of showing will come spilling out. He can still feel Steve’s mouth and taste him and if he looks at him, he’ll break.

“We should go.” He says, voice sharp and hoarse.

They take a circuitous route back to the hotel, and they say nothing to each other. Bucky can barely unglue his teeth to breathe, let alone speak, and Steve just glances at him a few times before looking away.

Bucky doesn’t want to be dramatic. He wants to smile, nod and tell Steve _good spy craft, Rogers! You learn that yourself?_ But he can’t because he’s way too close to this, and he’s livid with himself for being so… so soft. His feelings for Steve have been his weakest point, the biggest chink in his armor, and he _knows_ this, but he’s still furious. Knowing doesn’t make it hurt any less.

They aren’t followed back to the hotel. Bucky lets them into the room and runs out of steam very quickly after that, suddenly feeling cornered. They’re sharing a hotel room; there’s nowhere for him to go to hide his face.

“I’m gonna. Hit the bath.” He says haltingly, and does just that, escaping into the washroom and leaning back against the door. He cranks on the bath and dumps in three mini bottles of body wash, making the room smell like lemongrass. He climbs in and drags his wet fingers through his hair. He count the tiles from left to right, and then from ceiling to the edge of the tub.

He’s pretty sure, if he tries hard enough, shuts down his emotional reactions and closes himself off, he can get back to full functionality pretty quickly. He knows Shuri would be livid with him for his return to restrictive emotionality, and the resulting treatment of himself like an object to be programmed and debugged, but he knows it _works_ , and if it helps him survive this, then he’s gotta take that route. _You are allowed to feel things_ she would say, but at this moment, he isn’t allowed to feel this. He isn’t allowed to want Steve like this, be so distraught by this feeling, and isn’t allowed to be brokenhearted. There’s an established equilibrium he has to return to, and sacrifices have to be made. It’s a tale as old as time.

He sinks under the bubbles and holds his breath for a full thirty seconds before surfacing again, then goes back to counting the tiles.

He remembers he used to count the tiles in the cryo bay after Hydra thawed him out. Always a hundred and thirteen across, always fifty-five up and down. He’d sit there and shiver as they did cursory physical checks to make sure nothing important was broken- shining lights in his eyes, snapping their fingers next to his ears, poking him with needles along certain lines to make sure his nerves weren’t fried, waiting for him to nod in confirmation that he felt each little stab.

At least they’d been kinder in Wakanda. They’d given him a warm blanket, a cup of _extremely_ strong hot coffee and fancy floating tablet thing to watch Netflix on. Shuri had scanned him with one wave of her hand and nodded to herself before leaving him alone.

“Bucky?”

There’d been no tiles to count that time. Just the careful, laborious work of undoing neural pathways, one at a time.

“Bucky?”

Then came the surgery to replace the old titanium bone grafts with feather light, healing-facilitating vibranium. Not painless, because surgery never was, but provided profound relief from the heavy ache of the old pieces of metal, slowly twisting inside his skeleton.

“ _Bucky!_ ”

He blinks and looks up, and Steve is standing in the bathroom, face full of concern. He’s changed back into a regular shirt and jeans, and he looks very familiar in a haunting sort of way.

“You okay?” Steve asks, but his tone and eyebrows answer the question for him.

Bucky gives his head a small shake, trying to reintegrate into the current reality, and rubs two fingers into his eyes.

“Yeah. Sorry. Just, uh. Lost track of time.”

“I called your name five times, Buck.” Steve says, and he has that stubborn pinched look that just last year ended up with them fighting Iron Man in an abandoned nuclear facility in Siberia. He visibly hesitates, then comes slowly and carefully to sit with his back against the bathtub, elbows on his raised knees.

“Just, you know. Having a luxurious bubble bath. Isn’t that something people do now a days?” Bucky looks at the back of Steve’s head, then away again.

“It’s been an hour, Buck.” Steve says quietly, looking at him over his shoulder.

Bucky closes his eyes and lets his head fall back against the rim of the tub, which is indeed full of only lukewarm water and considerably fewer bubbles.

Shit. He must have lost time. It’s been a while since that happened.

“Sorry.” He says, and the way his throat is stretched, makes it come out like a croak.

It’s dead silent in the bathroom, the lemongrass bubbles gone stale and sour in the air.

Steve shifts a bit, scratches one arm.

“It’s not you who should be apologizing. It’s me. I’m sorry, Buck. Sorry that uh… that happened.”

_I’m not_ , Bucky wants to say, which is both true and untrue. He wish it hadn’t happened, but God was it wonderful nonetheless.

“Nat taught me that move to avoid detection. Guess it’s, uh. Different when it’s two guys.”

Bucky grimaces at that.

“No. It was a good instinct and it worked. Don’t apologize, Steve.”

“You sure? I mean. It’s all well and good, I know, to _look_ and watch and stuff, but… I mean, kissing another man like _that_ might be a bit much for the average, you know. Guy. Especially if he was caught off guard.”

Bucky opens his eyes a little bit, just enough to watch Steve smooth a worried hand through his hair a few times. He sighs and leans forward, opening the valve at the bottom of the tub, and then cranking on the hot water at full strength.

The noise of tap fills the bathroom, taking over where their words are failing them.

“There’s more mini bottles under the sink. Wanna pour two more in? I’ve lost my bubbles.” Bucky says, leaning back again and closing his eyes. He feels tired and resigned to this awkwardness. He listens to the sound of the sink cabinet opening, then closing, then the bottles being opened, and the renewed smell of lemongrass fills the bathroom.

Bucky sighs deeply and sinks into the warming water. He considers continuing to say nothing, but he may as well try to end this conversation.

“You don’t gotta worry about it, Steve. Just got a bit rattled by the whole “large crowd, no escape” situation. I’ll be fine in a couple.”

“You sure?” Steve says, and he seems a bit… flat as he says it. Unimpressed.

“Yes. I’m sure.” Bucky says, eyes still closed. He listens to Steve get up, and to the shuffling of his feet, and wonders if he messaged Shuri an SOS, if she could get him out of here early. Maybe he could make an excuse.

Then he hears the jingle of a belt buckle, and his eyes fly open.

“What the _hell_ are you doing?” Bucky says, sitting up straighter.

Steve is kicking off his jeans, one leg then the other, then pulls his socks off.

“I decided that maybe I fancied a bubble bath. And if you’re just gonna blow me off instead of talk, then I guess I’m getting in there with you.” He gives Bucky a look and throws his socks on the ground.

“You- Steve, there is _not_ enough room in here.” Bucky says, smacking his soapy hand on the rim of the tub. His voice has gone up an octave and he watches in horrified fascination as Steve peels his shirt off and drops it onto his jeans. In the golden bathroom light, his torso glows like a little sun.

“There sure as shit is; it’s a two-man tub. Just bend your legs, and I’ll sit at the other end.”

And with that, he drops his drawers, and there Steve Rogers is, standing in a mid-range hotel bathroom in his altogether, with Bucky gawping at him like a catfish.

Bucky isn’t sure where to look, but his eyes sure seem to know where they _want_ to look, and it’s a hell of a job stopping them. He’s exactly gob smacked enough to not resist when Steve shuts off the tap, closes the drain and steps into the water, sinking into the bubbles as best he can with the sigh of a man far too pleased with himself.

Bucky gapes at him, at a loss for words.

“Y- I, _Rogers_ , what the hell do you think you’re doing?” he squawks, the tub squeaking against his ass and he tries to make room for all of Steve’s ridiculous long legs next to his own. They’re wedged in like sardines in a tin.

“I told you. I wanted a bath.” Steve says primly, entirely too self-satisfied with his own stubbornness, and immediately Bucky is incredibly annoyed.

“Well maybe did you stop to think you weren’t invited into my bath and that you should wait your turn?” he says, kicking Steve’s foot away from where it was worming its way along his outer thigh.

Steve just grins and sinks deeper into the bubbles. “Where’d be the use in that?”

“Oh, yeah? And just what exactly are you trying to achieve, you stubborn asshole?” Bucky ineffectively splashes some bubbles at him.

Steve lifts his knees and leans on them with his elbows. He gives Bucky a look.

“You’re upset, Buck. You were so happy, and then... you clammed up and got all jumpy and I don’t wanna waste our time together being, you know. Weird.” He raises an eyebrow at Bucky and blows a puff of bubbles at him. “We only got a couple days together before I’m in… well, who the hell knows where.”

Bucky’s ire fades quickly, but calcifies into a sort of stubborn resolve. If Steve is determined to be this much of an obstinate donkey, then the only thing to do is fight fire with fire.

“Okay.” Bucky puts both hands on the rim of the tub. One makes a loud click. “Fine. You wanna know?”

“I wanna know.” Steve says, and his face clearly says he’s ready to call any bluff thrown his way. His jaw is set and eyebrows a mulish flat line.

Bucky levers himself up and leans almost all the way forward, holding himself in a poised half push-up position over Steve, who blinks and leans back slightly, before remembering himself and going still.

Bucky’s wet hair swings around his temples, the drips the only noise in the bathroom.

He holds there, waiting for the moment. He knows it’ll come.

Steve doesn’t move, just watches Bucky’s face. His eyes are determined, and Bucky knows he’s gotta do it.

So he tilts his head slightly and descends, arms holding all the weight of his upper body, and presses his wet lips to Steve’s dry ones.

He decides to flip the table on their last kiss, this time being the one to open his mouth and demand Steve open his and be kissed exactly as Bucky dictates. Steve inhales sharply through his nose, just as Bucky had, and then pulls away just enough to drag in a breath. There’s a moment, their noses pressed side by side, Bucky’s eyes screwed shut and not daring to look, that he thinks he might have miscalculated terribly and gambled on a dead horse. But Steve takes another ragged gasp and surges back into him, letting Bucky kiss him again.

The vindication is astronomical, and Bucky groans a little when Steve puts a hand on his side, slippery and warm. Everything smells like lemongrass, but Steve tastes like Bucky, and vice versa. Bucky’s so suddenly and violently, deliriously happy with the reciprocation that it feels like a little star has gone supernova inside his chest.

They separate only a hairsbreadth, and they both are breathing heavy in the humid air.

“Tell me.” Steve says, so quiet. “Say the words.” His eyes are so terribly blue.

Bucky sucks in a breath, but doesn’t move from where he holds himself in the air above Steve.

“I wanted it to be real.” He says, just as quiet. “I wanted it to be real, but you…”

“Wanted it to be real too.” Steve says, and his hand slides up onto Bucky’s neck, thumb sliding along his jaw from chin to hinge. He arches his back slightly, lifting his face into Bucky’s, and they kiss again, this time less one sided and instead like a mutual oath of desire. Their eyes are open, and they look at each other with a whole new possible world born between them.

They kiss sweetly for only a little while, reveling in no points being proven or made. When Bucky pulls away, he sits back at his end of the tub and can’t stop the goofy grin on his face.

“So this is new.” He says, and he feels a strange hysterical laugh bubble up in his chest.

Steve is flushed bright red, and he looks positively delicious as he rubs the back of his head bashfully.

“I mean. Not for me. Wanted to kiss you since I was a kid, just never had the courage.”

“Isn’t that what they always say about you? Lacking in courage?”

Steve is grinning like a loon too, and their legs are mingling much more intently than they had been.

“You always put the fear of God into me, Buck. Scared me shitless just by looking at me.”

Bucky finds his ankle underwater and feels it in his palm, delicate yet sturdy, perfectly formed.

“There wasn’t nothing you coulda done that woulda scared me away, Steve.”

“Same goes here.” Steve says earnestly, and gives Bucky a smile so incredibly kind and full of relieved adoration that Bucky has to look away.

They stew for a while, both blushing bright red, glancing at each other and away again with little coy grins, as if they were a courting couple back in their youth.

Then Bucky starts to snicker.

“What?” Steve asks, grabbing one of Bucky’s toes.

“Two man tub my _ass_ , Rogers.” Bucky says, and shifts again to emphasize their squashed position.

“In my defense, it looked bigger from the outside.”

“Isn’t that what they always say.”

They both break down into laughter again.

Days later, when Shuri asks him about his time in San Diego, she takes one look at his immediately crimson face and groans, lifting both hands into a facsimile of a prayer in front of her chest.

“Oh thank _God_. I thought you two would never figure it out!” she claps her hands at him, bracelets jingling, “Men. Are. _Useless_. At feelings!”

Bucky blusters and considers defending himself, but sags.

_I mean_ , he thinks sheepishly, _it did take us a hundred years._


End file.
